About Us

"To improve health and quality of life by applying engineering principles to scientific discovery and technology innovation, and to train future leaders in Bioengineering through inspiring education and dedicated mentorship."

Bioengineering, one of the youngest engineering disciplines, employs the principles and tools of traditional engineering specialties that are applied to solve biomedical problems. It is broad in its spectrum, with its foundation in all of the engineering sciences, as well as physiology and other biomedical sciences. UC San Diego is at the forefront of bioengineering. In recognition of the unique features and requirements of bioengineering and the excellence of the Bioengineering faculty and programs, the University of California established a new Department of Bioengineering in August 1994. In 1995, the National Research Council of the National Academy of Science, National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine published a comprehensive report in which they ranked the UCSD Bioengineering graduate program number 1 in the nation for effectiveness in teaching and number 2 for scholarly quality. It remains the #1 ranked Bioengineering doctoral program according to the most recent National Research Council study (2010). The 2010 U.S News & World Report ranked our graduate program #2 and our undergraduate program #5 in the nation. At UCSD, the cooperative arrangement between the Schools of Engineering and Medicine is the foundation of this success by providing an ideal research and training environment that leads to effective collaborations between engineers and medical scientists. We broadly categorize our research interests to embrace three pillars of bioengineering: multiscale bioengineering, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, and systems biology and medicine. With established and promising up-and-coming core faculty, our department has four disease focus areas including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, metabolic disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases. Read about our history here.